


Empty Space

by shapinguptobeprettyood



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4506189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapinguptobeprettyood/pseuds/shapinguptobeprettyood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully can't take the absence in her bed anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It didn't used to happen often. And when it did, they never talked about it.

Monica had side-eyed Scully at work for a solid three days after the first time. But Scully was steadfast, met her gaze evenly, made no indication of any change in the relationship.

She understood why. Or at least she liked to think she did. It had been a week after Mulder left the first time she asked.

"Monica," Dana's voice had been soft and almost afraid, not traveling across the office to John's ears. "Will you stay with me tonight?"

"Of course," Monica responded without giving any due process of thought.

It became clear that she had misunderstood what Scully had asked her when the shorter woman grasped her hand as she mumbled something about wanting to go to bed later that night, William sleeping in his crib and the monitor on high. She pulled Monica towards her bed, avoided looking at it, and murmured, "I'm sorry. You don't have to stay."

Monica brushed the hair out of Dana's face, meeting her crystalline gaze. "I'll stay, Dana. But I'm not... what you need," she finished lamely, trying to avoid making her friend cry. _I'm not Mulder. I don't love you like that, I can't._

"I know," Scully responded, dropping her grip. She began shucking her clothes as she moved towards the light switch. Darkness engulfed them as Monica slowly peeled back her jacket, laying it neatly next to the nightstand that definitely had the mark of Mulder about it. Alien shaped sticky notes, pencils rubber banded together into a middle-school reminiscent "crossbow" and a permanent water ring in the shape of a coffee mug.

It wasn't so dark that she couldn't see that Scully had left her bra and underwear on, and she did the same. Her heart was racing but her mind was still; she knew Scully well enough to understand. But she had no idea how Mulder held her as they lay in the bed together, whether Dana would face away or towards him, how much they intertwined.

She didn't need to ask, it seemed. Dana slid underneath her bedding and wrapped her arm around Monica's waist, red hair tickling underneath her chin.

She had a thousand questions, but she repressed them all as she did what seemed natural to her--draping her own arm across Dana's shoulder, their legs attempting to occupy the same space.

Was this what it was like to be Mulder? To care about a woman who was slowly losing everything and breaking inside?

No, she decided. Being Fox Mulder was caring, loving, and knowing it was because she met you, it was your fault, and not being able to stop it.

The second was after she almost got Mulder back. She'd barely been breathing by the time Monica had them home, sobs wracking through her slight frame violently. Mrs. Scully had panicked the moment Monica unlocked the door.

"Dana," the older woman breathed, shifting William to her hip. "Agent Reyes, what happened?"

"He's still gone, Mom," Scully heaved, clutching at Monica's arm. "I almost had him back, but they ruined it."

Monica swept Dana's hair back behind her ear, something she did a lot now. "Mrs. Scully, I'm going to be staying with Dana and William tonight. Just for safety."

_And Dana's sanity._

Margaret pursed her lips slightly, the small touches between the two not going unnoticed. "Good, Agent Reyes."

It was nearly an hour before Mrs. Scully finally left the apartment, a wistful stare lingering on her still-sobbing daughter. As soon as the door clicked, Monica darted over and slid the top lock home.

Dana looked terrible, she noted silently. A new surge of anger welled in her chest. How dare they keep Mulder from his son and his partner. How dare they have the power to reduce Dana Scully to a catatonic mess. They deserved the worst of punishments, she concluded, if the time and opportunity ever arose.

"Dana." Her voice was surprisingly strong and sure, unlike her mind. "William's asleep, and you need to sleep too. Come on," she urged, holding out her hand. Scully's hand trembled as it slid into place with hers, every part of her suddenly looking frail.

She undressed in the bedroom with a blank expression on her face, although with the swollen eyes and the angry red of her cheeks it wasn't difficult to tell she was upset.

They met in the middle of the bed the same way they did last time, Dana tucked in the space created by Monica's chin and knees.

"I'm sorry, Dana," she whispered against the flame of hair.

Scully just buried her face into the hollow of the other woman's neck.

The third had been from before William's kidnapping to well beyond it. She never stopped sleeping in the same bed as her friend, a surrogate for the man who was supposed to be here. She held her the night she decided William would be better off with someone else, unable to stop herself from being bitter at Mulder. For getting Scully pregnant, for getting abducted, for being dead, for coming back, for missing William's birth, for leaving his newborn son and his partner all on their own.

Except they weren't alone. Scully was instead asking Monica to fill the hole that Mulder left. But the wound was jagged, raw, bleeding, and Mulder is larger than her; she doesn't take up the amount of space he did and she doesn't have the heart to tell Dana. Once she had the help of a blue eyed little boy, but now he has taken even more of Dana with him and that leaves her scrambling to halt the damage.

A day after the ordeal about Luke, she gently grabs Dana's arm as she tries to rise from bed. It's late; she must have needed water or the bathroom, because there was no William to check on anymore.

"What is this, Dana?" Monica's voice was soft.

"What?" Dread, panic, sorrow.

"Why do you want me here? I don't know what we are anymore."

"I... Monica, I...." She turns to face the other woman, pushing her hair from her eyes carefully, fingertips just barely brushing the skin of Monica’s cheek. “You’re what I have left now. I don’t have anything else besides you. And I’m…. I’m sorry for forcing you to do this. To stand in for him like it’s not obvious I just want him back. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything like I loved them and now it’s ruining me that I can’t have it.”  
Monica cradles one of Dana’s cheeks, rubbing the tears away. “Did you ever imagine it would go like this?”

Dana laughs bitterly. “No. I thought the X-files would go away and we would get moved to different departments to live out our lives in relative peace. He flipped my world on its head.”

Monica doesn’t miss the forlorn bitterness in her statement. “He’ll be back. We’ll find him soon.” She wasn’t even sure of the validity of her words. Was she just making empty promises for the purpose of consoling a heartbroken woman? Probably, she thought sadly, allowing Dana’s arms to once again snake around her and constrict her in the vice grip she had grown accustomed to. She was saying the words that may instill just the slightest bit of hope in the woman crying silently into the hollow of her throat, and in turn, she was working to convince herself of the same thing.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this takes place after they leave to see CSM but before they actually get there.

Scully didn’t know where they were at this point. They’d been driving for about two hours, so they probably were only just barely away from the eastern seaboard, and they’d been relatively quiet. There was just too much to talk about all at once; their lives had practically come unravelled, and it was raw and painful. She took comfort at being near him again, even if he was jittery and going through sunflower seeds a handful at a time. It was an odd thing to just watch, and it was an odd thing for him to have needed to do.  
As he glanced at the once-empty coffee cup to deposit seed shells, he noticed her stare. "What's up?"  
It was so casual. Like they weren't fugitives, like it was just a normal road trip. She smiled suddenly. "I missed you," she admitted.  
He met her eyes briefly, then abruptly pulled off to the gravel shoulder of the rural frontage road they were on. The trees were thick and dark, which dimly reminded her of Oregon, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. But she stopped thinking about the forest when Mulder's mouth connected hotly with hers. His hands slid into her hair when his tongue slid across her bottom lip, making her heart jump. It was more urgent than the kiss in the prison had been. There was no one to watch, no one to stop them, no one to care. There was no eloquent way of describing his ferocity. If she hadn't still been buckled he would've pulled her into his lap.  
He finally slowly withdrew, pressing his forehead to hers. "That's the understatement of the century, Scully."  
God, how could she be so happy right now? Was that what he did to her? "I can't tell you how nice it is to finally be near you again," she whispered, carding her fingers through his hair.  
"I can, its pretty fucking great," he replied, earning a chuckle from her.  
"You know..." she said slowly after a long pause. "I was sleeping with Agent Reyes."  
Suddenly he was three feet away from her.  
"Just sleeping. I tried to pretend she was you."  
One hand crept over her own, linking them together again. "And?"  
"She's not you. It was nice to know she cared about me and-" She stopped dead in the sentence. No, not now, Dana. "I think I'll sleep better next to you."  
He kissed her again, a more chaste, gentle kiss. "I'm sorry."   
Of course she hadn't even needed to say his name for Mulder to know. It was odd to think that they used to look at each other and only see the surface, yet now it was like they were each other's diaries. Secrets, confessions, obsessions- there was nothing they didn't know now.  
"It's not your fault, Fox."  
Her voice was so full of love that he could look past the use of his first name, and the bore of her big eyes into his own made him forget it. This was the woman who he ruined in nearly every imaginable way; her career, her health, her family, her son, her innocence, her ability to lead a normal life. And she still looked at him like he hung the moon just for her.  
"I don't deserve you, Dana," he said as he pulled back onto the empty road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured they would have a hell of a lot of time to talk about whatever they wanted to during the gap the show doesn't show us. also I somehow couldn't make this angsty because I'm too upset by recent revival spoilers.

**Author's Note:**

> this is part one of two. I kind of noticed the way Scully and Monica treated each other while Mulder was gone was very similar to the way Scully and Mulder interact after Fight The Future so this knife to the heart was born. I also had no beta except for microsoft word spell checker.


End file.
